Fascinating article. While I think that people born abroad to American parents should be considered eligible for the presidency, I think the author makes an interesting case. Of course, IANAL, but it sure would be sweet schadenfreude if the Tea Party darling got knocked out of the running because of this, given all the angst created by the Birthers.

“Abrams mentioned that the original Star Wars films themselves were based on classic storytelling themes that heavily influenced creator George Lucas. "Those simple tenets are, to me, by far the least important aspects of this movie,” Abrams said. “They provide the bones that were well proven long before they were used in Star Wars. What was important to me was introducing a brand new chapter, brand new characters, using relationships that were embracing the history that we know to tell a story that is new.”

I really don’t get this obsession with super-high resolutions in TVs. I mean, our cable and streaming services compress the hell out of 720p and 1080p and murder high-resolution audio to get it to us, and we’re talking about TVs with 32 megapixels per frame at 60 frames per second now? Insane. Give me great 720p or 1080p, with fewer artifacts and less softness, instead of this crap. While we’re at it, how about increasing the bandwidth available to audio?

Sadly, I think it’s time for mountain bikers to directly oppose the Sierra Club. I recognize that they have many of the same ideals as we do as lovers of the outdoors, but they are just too opposed to mountain bikes at their core. They’re playing a game of keeping us, their enemies, close. We need to attack them–hard–at every chance to draw attention to our numbers and growing power. As their core constituency of older hikers and equestrians pass on and we grow in age, wealth, and numbers, we’ll be important to them and they’ll have to make the concessions that we believe are our due.

Chu notes that “now is not a good time”, but I believe that the only time we’ll get them to actually do something that gains us real ground is when they need us for a bigger goal, and this is one of those times.

This is one of those things I stayed away from, but now that I’ve seen Episode VII, I read. I needn’t have been worried; there are no spoilers. In any case, it’s a nice summary of what’s canonical in the Star Wars universe, now that the extended universe created by most of the books and comics released has been wiped away.

This review focuses on the aspect I liked least about the movie–the actual plot in this episode. I know that sounds like a big thing to be a weakness, but I’m willing to forgive it (at least while I’m still in the afterglow of seeing the movie). In any case, this review explores it more deeply than I did. It has pretty good spoiler warnings.

As a geek who grew up on Star Wars more than any other movie, I have been excited for The Force Awakens. My daughter just turned seven, so she’s now the same age I was when the original movie came out. We’ve been watching the movies together in preparation for this new one, and her excitement for the originals, and her anticipation for the new movie, have further spurred on my own excitement. I saw it late last night, by myself; we’ll go as a family just after Christmas. Without further ado….

Overall

This movie has a lot–perhaps too much–to do in a couple short hours. It has to set up a bunch of new characters, establish an arc for the trilogy, tie it together with the past, and also has to have a plot to drive this episode. I think it does really well at the early things in this list, at the expense of the latter.

If you don’t want to read the rest: The Force Awakens is the best movie in the franchise since The Empire Strikes Back. It doesn’t quite reach the level of Empire, but is better than Return of the Jedi, and might even be better than A New Hope, except that Episode IV has the benefit of being the original. Episode VII is far, far better than any of the terrible prequels.

The Good

Rey is perhaps the best-formed, most interesting character right out of the gate, from any Star Wars movie. Her story is good, and Daisy Ridley is convincing and captivating. I think her performance as a strong female character is more in-line with what I expected from Natalie Portman, before being bitterly disappointed. Unlike Portman’s Amidala, Rey is not a character who has to be pulled into the action from a diplomatic post; she’s in the thick of it from the beginning. Her strong start is reminiscent of, and perhaps even better than that of, J.J. Abrams’s Sydney Bristow from Alias. I’m so happy that my daughter will have such a great female character to enjoy.

Finn is another fun character with a strong start. It’s so fun to see characters in Star Wars being played by actors who are good, and not burdened with expectations from other big performances (see Natalie Portman, above). Finn is not quite what I expected, but he’s great.

Han and Leia’s relationship is more complicated than ever, and it’s wonderful to see them spend screen time together. The nostalgia is off-the-charts when they’re on-screen. Harrison Ford is obviously having fun making this movie, and his rough edges have softened, making for a fun performance.

Kylo Ren is a different kind of dark robed bad guy with a light saber, and I’ll leave it at that. His performance is a lot of fun to watch, and it’s great to have another take on a Force-wielding bad guy. His role and personality are likely to be controversial, but I really enjoyed it.

The arc for the characters being set up for the remainder of the trilogy is interesting, and there are plenty of fun questions raised by this movie. The end of the movie is reminiscent of the bittersweet ending from The Empire Strikes Back; it’s built to be the starting point of the next movie.

The Bad

The story of this episode is too derivative of some past plots, but luckily it almost doesn’t matter; it’s simply there to provide the action to keep the rest of it moving, and an impetus to bring our new characters together.

“Easy? You call that easy?!” No, I call this easy. “All too easy”, even. You’ll know what I mean. That said, see the bullet point above.

Poe Dameron is too much of a cliche, even for a movie franchise whose characters are all cliches. It’s possible for this to get better in the future, I suppose.

Captain Phasma doesn’t have much to do, and is much less impressive than I’d hoped.

There’s not enough explanation of how the Resistance and First Order sprang from the Rebellion and the Empire. I understand why this probably couldn’t make the cut, but as a fan of the originals, I want to know more about what happened after Return of the Jedi.